Twice in recent weeks, judges in Columbus have -- in so many words -- let the Ohio Constitution become a Slinky toy in the General Assembly's playpen.

True, the edicts include enough words such as "therefore" and "whereas" to bubble-wrap their real meanings.

But that can't cushion this fact: Last week's decision (in ProgressOhio.org vs. JobsOhio), like a May 30 ruling against the Ohio Roundtable (noted here last week), means Joe or Joan Taxpayer generally can't go to court to question many of the General Assembly's antics.

If you think that's a good thing, you're either in someone's legislative majority or you don't pay taxes.

Regardless of party, a term-limited General Assembly, plus a job-dispensing governorship, mean lawmaking in Ohio ain't what it used to be: Checks and balances are fewer, and weaker, in the rush to make nice-nice with a governor made even more powerful by legislative term limits. In most places, that would prod judges to rebalance the Statehouse scales.

But this isn't most places. It's Ohio.

So, last week, in a challenge to Gov. John Kasich's transformation of the state Development Department into JobsOhio, the 10th Ohio District Court of Appeals ruled that a liberal outfit named ProgressOhio, plus Sen. Michael Skindell, a Lakewood Democrat, and Rep. Dennis Murray, a Sandusky Democrat, had "no standing" to challenge the General Assembly's creation of JobsOhio, despite constitutional angles which even the appellate court's ruling conceded are important: "There is no question [the plaintiffs'] challenge raises significant concerns about at least some of the provisions of the JobsOhio Act."

Then, however, the ruling cited the courthouse equivalent of this, that and the other thing -- the phrase "great public interest," a requirement for winning a case like ProgressOhio's. And, said the court, the objections that ProgressOhio, Murray and Skindell raised to JobsOhio didn't amount to "enough of a public concern to confer standing" on them -- the right to go to court.

Be it noted: The Appeals Court panel was bipartisan. The judges were also unanimous. Be it noted also, however, that the ruling amounts to hair-splitting of a very high order. It decided a dispute not in terms of reality but in terms of form. That's also the approach a Franklin County Common Pleas judge took May 30 in shooing away the Ohio Roundtable's challenge to racetrack slot machines.

JobsOhio may well be the greatest thing since sliced bread.

As a mechanism for drawing jobs to Ohio or keeping jobs here, JobsOhio, as a private nonprofit, probably can be -- probably will be -- more nimble than the state Development Department, which is a state agency, with all the paperwork folderol that implies. But "nimble" isn't the same thing as "accountable." And the Ohio Constitution frowns on state investment in private corporations -- a question raised by the ProgressOhio lawsuit. But thanks to last week's ruling, there won't be an answer to that question, at least not in court.

The same goes for the Roundtable's lawsuit against racetrack slot machines operated by the State Lottery Commission. Outside the fantasy world peopled by the General Assembly and Ohio's insatiable racetrack lobby, no one ever knew or thought that when voters authorized the Ohio Lottery in May 1973, they also authorized slot machines.

Keep that in mind the next time (supposedly) conservative Statehouse incumbents yelp about "original intent" and "constitutional government." If you're an Ohioan, you're entitled to laugh. And you should. You should also be entitled to sue. But you're not.

Suddes, a member of The Plain Dealer's editorial board, writes from Ohio University.